Co-workers 2010
Billur Akkaya 
I was born and grew up in the Aegean part of Turkey - the birthplace of ancient philosophy. After completing my degree in the Faculty of Medicine at Hacettepe University in Ankara, I joined the T-cell Biology Group as a D.Phil student in October 2008. My project here is co-supervised by Simon Davis and Richard Cornall.
My interest in scientific research began when I was a medical student. I attended several post-graduate level immunology, biochemistry and molecular biology lectures as a guest student in the Health Sciences Institute of Hacettepe University and tried to gain scientific insight and laboratory experience during my summer internships in the Glycobiology and Radiobiology Research Institutes of the University of Oxford. During my internships, I was very much inspired by the research atmosphere of Oxford and decided to apply for a place here after completing my medical degree. Amongst all the disciplines that I have had some experience of, I have always been interested in immunology the most. From a medical point of view, modulation of the immune system seems to have a key role in the solution of diverse health problems such as cancer, infections and autoimmune diseases. My project here is focused on understanding the role of costimulatory molecules, particularly PD-1 and ICOS, in autoimmune disease settings and investigating the consequences of modulating their function.
I live with another scientist, my husband Munir, who is also a D.Phil student, in the Cellular Immunology Unit at the Dunn School which shouldn’t necessarily mean we discuss immunology all day long. Besides immunology, I am very much interested in art and spend my spare time with oil painting on canvas and charcoal drawing.
Jiandong Huo
After completing an undergraduate degree in Medical Microbiology & Immunology at Newcastle University, I came to join the T-cell biology group last October to start my D. Phil, funded by the Clarendon fund and a Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine (NDM) Research Prize.
Working in the T-cell biology group is a completely different experience for me. My previous research experience involved functional studies of a cell wall protein and a cellular protein in Bacillus subtilis (an experimental system for Gram-Positive bacteria), in Prof. Errington’s group. My current work focuses on investigating the first stage of the intracellular signaling network in T cells, i.e. the binding of SH2-domain containing proteins to the phosphorylated cytoplasmic tails of cell surface receptors, aiming to build up a systemic model of the network of such interactions in a T cell.
Edward Evans
I currently co-manage the T-cell biology group as well as continuing my own projects, however I am leaving the lab at the end of March 2011 to work full time with Abingdon Community Church. For more details of my work please go to my archived page.
Elizabeth Huang
To be updated.
Heather Brouwer
After completing A-levels in my home town Burnley, in Lancashire, I came to Oxford to do a degree in biochemistry at St Hildas college. During the final year of my degree I specialized in glycobiology and human disease, and completed a project which focussed on the relationship between P-glycoprotein, lipid raft composition and multidrug resistance in cancer. I also developed a keen interest in immunology.
I joined the T-cell biology group in July 2003, a mere three weeks after my final examination. My projects involve cloning, expressing and purifying CD28 and its family members for crystallography and binding studies. In my spare time I enjoying water colour painting, taking my inspiration from Oxford's beautiful architecture.
James Felce
I first came to Oxford from my native Southport in 2005 when I started my degree in Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry at Oriel College. In my final year I was lucky enough to undertake my 12 week Part II project in the T-cell biology group, during which time I focussed on the stoichiometry of the G protein-coupled receptor CCR5, a major drug target due to its role in HIV infection. During this period I became very familiar with the techniques of BRET (Bioluminescence Resonance Energy Transfer) and, in collaboration with the Klenerman lab - University of Cambridge, DySCo (Dynamic Single-Molecule Colocalisation). I subsequently went back to complete my final year of undergraduate, specialising in clinical immunology and structural proteomics.
Having begun my D.Phil in 2009 now at St. Cross College, I am continuing my work on CCR5 and its behaviour, and am broadening my focus to investigate a number of other key GPCRs in a similar way. I am also keenly interested in the mechanism of T-cell triggering and so am working alongside others in the group to explore the possible mechanisms underlying this process. Primarily, I am doing this through the adaptation of the BRET technique to answer key questions about T-cell receptor dynamics within the membrane.
Outside of the lab I am usually down at the Iffley Road sports centre training with either the University Water Polo or Triathlon teams, or running somewhere on the streets of Oxford.
Jan Fennelly
I trained in medical laboratory sciences in Newcastle prior to entering research working on cell surface receptors. Later I decided that a change was in order and moved to Oxford to work on OX40 and CD4 in Neil Barclay’s lab at the Dunn School. Then followed a brief departure back north to Manchester where I worked in Mike Dexter’s lab and completed a part-time BSc in applied biological sciences.
I have now worked in the T-cell biology group for seven years, taking part in many projects, including the expression and purification of B7 and related co-stimulatory proteins. More recently my main focus has been on RACE of new CD2 family members and GLGI of novel genes identified in the lab during SAGE analysis.
In my spare time I enjoy growing vegetables on my allotment and creating stained glass windows.
Mai Vuong
After completing my BSc Biochemistry degree from Kingston University, I went on to do a Masters in Biochemical Engineering at University College London. This course gave me an insight into how successful laboratory results can be scaled-up to industrial scale production from the engineering and business point of view. However, having spent a couple of years in this field, I decided that academic research on the mini bench scale was the life for me.
I joined the T-cell biology group in October 2000 and have since been involved in a wide range of projects including cloning the genes of 11 members of the CD2 family, creating host cell lines geared towards structural genomics and making Long SAGE cDNA libraries.
In addition to my many changing interests outside of work, I have recently devoted the other half of my life to the Luk Chi Fu martial arts association (www.lukchifu.co.uk) and have performed lion dancing for various associations around Britain. This is all for fitness purposes of course.
Mami Chirifu
I visited the T-cell biology group for 3 months from Prof. Izemizu's lab in Kumamoto in order to learn some techniques for protein production, purification and binding analysis. I worked on the CD80/CD86 : CD28/CTLA-4 system of costimulatory molecules.
Yuan (Oliver) Lui
After finishing my DPhil in computer science at Oxford, I joined the T-cell biology group as a postdoc. Even though I am from a totally different background, Simon (and Ed) was kind (and brave) enough to offer me the opportunity to work and be trained in his group. I have worked closely with Ed on bioinformatics and data analysis, and have learned a lot about biology and immunology from him.
Rachel Knox
I grew up in Edinburgh, but seem to be gradually migrating southwards! After a gap year working as a classroom assistant in Tasmania, Australia, I went to Durham University to study Cell Biology. My first taste of life in the laboratory was a summer placement at Rothamsted Research (Hertfordshire), where I helped to further characterise a bacterial biocontrol agent for plant-parasitic nematodes. My undergraduate lab project, about using plant-delivered interference RNA to reduce insect feeding on crop species, and three weeks in the Netherlands Institute of Ecology doing some more molecular biology, helped to confirm my feeling that the lab is definitely the place for me.
I started as a research assistant in the T-cell Biology group in September. So far I have been working with James Felce to investigate the stoichiometry of GPCRs, and trying out a new protocol for making stable cell lines.
In my spare time, I'm usually learning German, sewing, or planning another hillwalking trip in the Scottish Munros (mountains over 3000 feet).
Ricardo Fernandes
After deciding that biochemistry was definitely my choice for my first degree I went on to spend 4 years discovering cells, proteins, pathways and reactions while having great fun at University of Porto, Portugal. As an undergraduate I worked at IBMC (Instituto Biologia Molecular e Celular, Porto) studying transthyretin 3-D structure with Prof Ana Margarida Damas and later studied cellular stress using a yeast model with Prof Pedro Moradas Ferreira, again at IBMC. Following this new challenge I joined Prof Suresh Rattan, at the University of Aarhus, Denmark, for a 6 month project under the ERASMUS program, where I literally tracked hundreds of fibroblasts to understand the effects of stress and ageing on both motility and cell division.
After this period in Denmark I almost immediately joined the T-Cell biology Group to work towards my D.Phil. Learning with John James, I started expressing fluorescent tagged proteins at the cell surface in order to image them at the single molecule level in collaboration with Prof David Klenerman's Group in Cambridge. My other major projects focus on T-cell receptor triggering – which is still one of the major unresolved problems in T-cell biology - trying to understand, at molecular level, how signals crosses the T cell membrane.
Sara Morgan
A native of Wiltshire, I headed to Wales for university and studied at Cardiff University, gaining a B.Sc (Hons) in Applied Biology. As part of my 4 year course I spent a year working at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratories in Salisbury. During this time I worked in Virology, specifically with Vaccinia looking at subunit orthopox vaccines.
Having completed my studies, I decided I wanted to continue the student lifestyle, and started a D.Phil in the T-cell biology group, indulging my interests in cellular signalling and immunology. My project looked at the interactions of superagonistic antibodies with some of the CD28 family of T cell surface molecules, which are involved in T cell activation.
I returned to the group as a post-doc this year and am continuing to investigate the mechanisms of superagonistic antibody signalling.
When not in the lab you can find me at the cinema, playing sport and socialising with friends.
Shinji Ikemizu
Prof. Shinji Ikemizu is a long standing collaborator who was visiting at the time of this photo. He is based at the University of Kumamoto in Japan. Link to his site here.
Susan Yu
Having completed my undergraduate degree in biology at Imperial College London, I joined the T-cell biology group as a D.Phil. student in October 2010. Immunology is an immense field of study which holds a lot of potential for clinical therapeutics; rendering research in this area both highly important and very interesting. My project mainly focuses on the use of superagonistic antibodies in manipulating cytokine signalling.
In my spare time, I play a lot of sports, play the piano, paint/draw
and watch a lot of movies/dramas.
Veronica Chang
I obtained a D. Phil from Oxford University in 2003. I had been studying the biology of foraminifera since I was an undergraduate. Foraminifera is a marine single-cell protist, and has a very distinct phenomenon in its cellular biology – the cell engulfs seawater as vacuoles into the cytoplasm, and then molecular-mediated crystallisation takes place in these vacuoles to form their new CaCO3 shells. Foraminifera shells are the most important biological materials in the Earth Sciences since the composition of their CaCO3 skeletons has provided us with information about the history of ocean circulation and climate change. Thanks to its interesting process of seawater vacuolisation, foraminifera is also a very promising research model for studying the transportation of Mg and Ca from seawater into their shells.
It might seem odd that someone with my experiences would be interested in a post in molecular immunology, but in a rather convoluted way, this seems to be a right path. My previous work can be divided into three parts: (1) foraminifera cell biology and ecology, (2) the regulation of trace elements, and (3) the biomineralisation of foraminifera. In 1992, I started to work on foraminifera biology at Taiwan University under the supervision of Professor C.-Y. Huang. My primary responsibility was to identify foraminifera species and to correlate their assemblage changes to the environments. The Cd2+ caught my interest, and I had the good fortune of being co-supervised by Professor S.-C. Pai, an expert on analytical chemistry.
In 1998, I came under the tutelage of Professor Sir R. Keith O’Nions at Oxford. I initiated an unprecedented approach – using Mg and Ca stable isotopes – to study an extremely exciting subject, the biomineralisation of foraminifera. The lack of any research techniques available for such a study meant that the first challenge was - to design new chromatography and mass spectrometry techniques to purify samples for high precision measurement, using MC-ICPMS (multiple collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry). These techniques enabled me to report the first ever Mg isotope composition of biological samples. However, these techniques can be applied to fields beyond that of biogeochemistry: among other things, they can shed light on the diet changes in archaeological studies by analysing the Ca and Mg isotopes of teeth and bone remains. These techniques have been published in J. Anal. At. Spectrom. 18 (2003) 296-301. The second part of my thesis work was to apply the techniques to study biomineralisation. I analysed natural foraminifera samples, seawater and laboratory crystallised samples, and discovered to my delight that the combination of Mg and Ca isotopes constitutes a powerful new tool to distinguish the different mechanisms in which Mg and Ca are involved in cell biology. A paper based on these results was submitted to Science and went on review. Although it was finally thought by the reviewers that yet more evidence should have been marshalled, the experience was nonetheless an encouragement for me and I obtained a much better appreciation of the rigorous standard of first-class science.
During my study of foraminifera, the process of seawater vacuolisation was what most caught my attention. The seawater vacuolisation of foraminifera occurs periodically during its life cycle and is believed to be triggered by cell stress, which may be similar to the initiation of phagocytosis. As I learned the phagocytosis of lymphocyte is not only through pinocytosis but also by opsonisation, I became very interested. What is more exciting is the phagocyte can present the digested antigen on its cell surface to bind T-cell receptor to trigger cell-mediated immunity. Up to this point, I have been completely attracted by such a fascinating recognition and communication network and came to an understanding that to do lymphocyte cell surface biology research is a wise long term career strategy.
I joined the T-cell biology group in July 2003. Although at this point, I have yet to learn all the biochemistry techniques and related knowledge, the group has been very helpful and I am a quick learner and very keen on exploring new disciplines. Versatile methodologies have been carried out in this lab, and among other things, I am eager to see the if my previous research experiences on isotopes, chromatography and MS might one day have an impact on protein structure analysis and T-cell biology.